


Swimming

by engagemythrusters



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alien Technology, Crack, Fish, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22730689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: Tech accidents always end in the strangest scenarios. This one leads Jack and Ianto to the Hub pool.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 96
Collections: The Bloody Torchwood Server Made Me Write This





	Swimming

**Author's Note:**

> _YOU_. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

"I'm bored."

"Of course you are," Ianto says. He doesn't look up from the file in his hands. "You couldn't spend a second in silent focus without mentally imploding."

"I'll have you know," Jack huffs, leaning back in the desk chair, "that I waited in the trenches _—_ "

"Yes, yes, you've been in lots of wars and you've done lots of things. I know."

Jack frowns at Ianto, who is still absorbed in his file. 

They had come in early after a Rift alert that had sent them running back and forth in Bute Park, arms laden with bits and bobs of alien tech and scrap metal. Ianto is finishing the report for the scrap metal, which will then be thrown into a pile in a spare room of the Archives, ready to be used... whenever they would need scrap metal, Jack supposes. Nobody really dipped into the supply after Suzie had died. No one really has use for scrap metal. Jack certainly doesn't. 

When there is no sign Ianto is going to pay him any heed, Jack reaches out and picks up the two pieces of tech they found. One looks vaguely familiar, and the other is pretty much a thirty-first century motor for a small boat. Jack fiddles with that one first, poking around at its exposed wires and smoothing his fingers over the dinged chunks of metal. 

"You know," Ianto says after a moment, finally looking up at him, "you could put your boredom to good use."

Jack immediately sits up straighter.

"By writing me the report on that... thing," Ianto finishes. He jabs his pen in the direction of the motor. 

Jack drops back in his seat with a sigh.

Ianto rolls his eyes. "Or not." 

He returns to his papers with a muttered "...make me do all the work..." under his breath, his eyes scanning what he's already written so fast that Jack has to marvel at it. Ianto is a self-proclaimed speed-reader. Sometimes, that ends up being kind of funny, because his brain works faster than his eyes and he skips words. Ianto has done many a double-take at Jack's reports as they sit together and work on them. It's always great when Jack can point out that _he was right._ Ianto might pretend to be annoyed, but Jack finds it unreasonably endearing.

With a fond sigh, Jack sets the motor down and reaches for the other bit of alien tech. He tosses it around in his hands, searching for tell-tale hints for what it might be. 

"Stop that," Ianto warns.

"Stop what?" Jack asks.

Ianto sets his papers down on the desk and gives Jack an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Being childish," Ianto says.

Jack sticks his tongue out, but sits back up to put the piece of tech down again anyway.

Unfortunately, Jack apparently had messed about with it too much, because the moment the thing hits the table, it goes off. A bright beam of light, thin and direct, zaps out of it, reaching out and finding a home in Ianto's midriff. Jack and Ianto have only a moment to send each other terrified looks before the light gets brighter and flashes, and then _poof_... both Ianto and the light are gone.

"Ianto!" Jack shouts, on his feet in an instant.

He rushes around his desk, dropping to his knees at the chair Ianto had been sitting on before he vanished into oblivion. His clothes lay scattered across the floor, which horrifies Jack and disturbs him to his core. He pushes around the tie and waistcoat, through the belt and trousers, looking for any signs of Ianto. Any at all.  His heart flutters when he sees a movement inside of Ianto's white shirt, and he wastes no time rooting through that to find a...

... _fish_?

Jack flicks the shirt aside and stares momentarily down at the creature, stunned beyond belief. 

"Ianto?" he asks. 

Then the fish starts flopping and Jack's brain kicks back in a smidge. Right. Fish. Fish need water. 

He reaches down and scoops the squirming fish into his hands, mentally running through lists of places with water. The loo... but he's not flushing it down the toilet. Sink? No. It's full of dishes that Ianto was going to do today. Coffee p—oh, that's not even an _option_!

The fish flops more in Jack's hands and suddenly clarity comes to him. The Hub pool had been filled again recently. Plenty of safe space for a fish to swim around.

He sprints out of his office, past the vacant chairs and desks, down the metal stairs, and straight to the grated walkway, where he quickly crouches and extends his hands down to the shallow waters and deposits the fish. The fish wriggles a little at first, then seemingly acclimatises to the water and swims out of Jack's hands. Jack lets out a long breath in relief.

"Sorry, Ianto," he says solemnly, even though he's not sure Fish Ianto can actually hear him.

He stands back up, watching Fish Ianto swim around in the waters below.

The piece of technology is familiar to him now. A gag gift on a world a good few light years and a whole millennium away from twenty-first century Earth, meant to entertain at parties. What sort of parties, Jack hasn't a clue. But he has encountered the device before, back in the seventies. They have a file on it somewhere. Ianto would know where it is. Too bad Ianto's the fish...

"I'll be right back," he tells the waters down below. 

Fish Ianto, being a fish, doesn't respond, so Jack just shrugs and goes back up to his office. He takes a moment to gather up Ianto's scattered clothes, attempting to arrange them neatly on Ianto's vacated chair before giving up and simply letting them rest in a heap on the seat. Then he takes his own seat, pulls himself closer to his computer, and tries to retrieve the hopefully digitised file. 

Jack lets out a small laugh in joy as the file blips into existence on his monitor. He takes the time to carefully read through it (both because he's not a speed-reader and because he doesn't want to miss anything crucial) and absorbs all the relevant information. Then he closes out of the file and turns to his desk, picking the bit of tech up again. Jack turns it around in his fingers, contemplating it for a few seconds, then plonks it back down on the table. It's practically worthless now—worthy of being donated to the scrap metal pile. It's a one-trick-pony, and a single-use one at that. 

Taking a final glance to the discarded pile of clothes, Jack gets up and returns to the main bulk of the Hub. He takes a sweeping glance out over the pool's waters from the top of the stairs, trying to find the fish-ified Ianto. With a startling jolt, he spots the orange fish swimming in circles in the spot Jack left him. And they aren't languid, lazy circles of ease and contentment; they're fast-paced, crazed circles. Oh, why did Jack leave him there, all alone? He must be so frightened... Jack would be, if he was suddenly turned from his nice, lovely body into some other being. Jack shudders to think of that. He'd like to stay in his own body, please and thank you. 

Jack bounds down the stairs and back to Fish Ianto, who still keeps wheeling about in frantic circles. 

"Hey," Jack says, squatting down. "It's okay. You'll be back to normal in a few hours."

This does not ease Fish Ianto, because Fish Ianto still can't hear him. Jack drops his fingers into the water, wiggling them around a little until the fish spots them and zooms up close to them, bumping up against them and weaving around them. Jack sort of plays with him like that for a while, splashing and waving his hand around for Fish Ianto to find and swim up to until Fish Ianto seems to grow more and more comfortable with his temporary body. 

"You're a cute fish," Jack says, dragging his fingers through the water some more as Fish Ianto swims after them.

He stops his movement for a second, allowing Fish Ianto to bump right into him, then gently strokes his hand down Fish Ianto's slippery back. He's about the size of Jack's hand now, and a bright and vibrant orange. And Jack wasn't kidding, because it is a sort of cute fish that Ianto's inhabiting. Jack knows the name of this type of fish, from that planet just out of Ianto's time and space. It's somewhere in the back of Jack's head, though Jack can't quite access it. Not that it matters much, really, but Jack would like to be able to tell Ianto about the fish when he returns to normal. The fish suits Ianto, in a way. Of course, Jack would prefer Ianto in his human body, but if Ianto _did_ have to be a fish, this is the fish he should be. 

Eventually, Jack's back begins to hurt from the hunched position he's been sitting in for the past twenty minutes or so. He groans and sits back, taking his hand out from the water so that he can roll his shoulders around. He cracks his neck and straightens his back, feeling the tension start to subside as his advanced healing kicks in just in time. 

Fish Ianto is evidently not comfortable with being alone, as a somewhat violent splash comes from the waters below. Jack frowns at the ripples, then rolls his eyes.

"Now who's mentally imploding?" Jack accuses.

He starts unlacing his boots, pulling his feet from them and setting them aside. Then he takes off his socks, rolls up the legs of his trousers, and dips his feet into the water. Fish Ianto darts out of the way, clearly startled by this new development. Jack snorts. 

When Fish Ianto realises that Jack's feet are just Jack's feet, he slowly returns, flicking his tail in short bursts as he edges back to Jack. Jack kicks his feet a little, which makes Fish Ianto skittish again, but his distrust abates much more quickly that time, and Fish Ianto comes back yet again.

"Oh, hey!" Jack exclaims as fins tickle his toes.

Fish Ianto swims over his feet again, dragging his tail in a way that seems almost _deliberate_. Jack flicks a toe upward, but Fish Ianto's confidence cannot be wavered. Jack laughs as the fish proceeds to tickle him over and over again.

"You're a naughty fish. Cute, but naughty."

Jack isn't sure how long he sits with Fish Ianto in the water, but it's a while, as made clear by Gwen's appearance. 

The cog door rolls open and she walks up the stairs, only to stop halfway up and scowl down at Jack. 

"Jack?" she asks. "What are you doing down there? And where's Ianto?"

Jack smiles and points out to the foot of the water tower, where Fish Ianto is exploring a pile of rocks. 

"What the—" 

"He'll be back to his normal, human self in another hour or so," Jack says. 

"He's a bloody _fish_!"

"A cute, naughty fish," Jack amends.

"Jack!"

"Can you get me the paperwork on my desk?" Jack asks her. "And the motor-looking thing?"

"What? Why?"

Jack shrugs, watching Fish Ianto flick his tail to speed himself to somewhere out of sight. "It's got to get done sometime, I guess. Might as well be while I'm waiting."

Gwen throws him a sceptical look, but does as he asks, anyway. 

For the next hour and a half, Jack putters slowly through the long report. Who knew filing futuristic boat motors was such a pain? Other than Ianto, obviously. Ianto would know exactly how much of a pain this is. Jack steals glances over at him every so often. Sometimes, Fish Ianto even comes back and tickles Jack when he wants attention. Jack gives him gentle pets and plays with him as much as one can play with a fish. 

Roughly three hours after Ianto was zapped into fish-hood, there's a frighteningly loud splash. Jack looks up abruptly from the word he's taken five minutes to think of, searching for what's gotten Fish Ianto into trouble now. Instead, he finds completely normal, totally human Ianto, sitting at the base of the water tower, blinking water out of his eyes.

"Oh," Ianto says.

Jack's face splits into a wide grin. He sets the papers and pen aside on the grating and gets up to wade through the water to get to Ianto. He reaches down a hand, which Ianto takes, and together they get Ianto back up on his feet.

"How was it?" Jack asks.

"Well," Ianto says, sounding somewhat astonished. "I think I finally know what Trevor felt like."

Jack laughs. He brushes a hand through the wet hair dripping down on Ianto's forehead, pushing it aside. Ianto blinks some more, but Jack suspects it's not still from the water. 

"You... ah... finished the paperwork," Ianto says after a moment.

"Mostly," Jack says. "You should probably do the rest."

"I probably should."

Jack smiles at him, his hands dropping to Ianto's biceps. 

They stare at each other for a little while longer. Then Ianto coughs and looks pointedly down at himself.

"Um..."

"Right," Jack says quickly. "Shower."

Jack leads Ianto up out of the Hub pool and back onto dry land, up the stairs and past the desks to get to the communal bathrooms. Gwen is at her desk, a small, poorly-concealed smile playing on her lips. Jack winks at her and she ducks her head, her fringe obscuring her eyes as the smile grows wider.

"What are you doing?" Ianto asks when Jack begins to strip himself as soon as they enter the bathroom.

"What does it look like? I'm getting you showered."

"You don't have to join me," Ianto points out.

"No, but I want to. Also, I think I'm obligated to, since I turned you into a fish in the first place."

"You turn me into a fish and get rewarded by showering with me," Ianto muses, quirking an eyebrow and the corner of his lip upwards. "That works out... how?"

"Oh, shut up," Jack says.

Jack turns the water on and together they enter for a well-deserved hot shower. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god.  
> Thanks for reading (aka putting up with my bullshit) and have a fantastic fucking day.  
> Jesus Christ.


End file.
